


Limbo

by Louffox



Category: Jacksepticeye RPF, Markiplier RPF, Youtube RPF
Genre: Agoraphobia, Blood, But only a little death, Confusion, Death, Fear, Fighting, Gore, Horror, Scary, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-09-19
Updated: 2015-10-02
Packaged: 2018-04-21 10:57:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 3,386
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4826537
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Louffox/pseuds/Louffox
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This can't be real. This can't be real. This can't be real.</p><p>It wasn't a place that should've existed, nor a place they should've been. This, they realized at the first opening of eyes and intake of dusty, acrid air. It was a place of violence and fear, and it was the only place for them now.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Big agoraphobia warning. Honestly. Or, well, hopefully- I'm implementing a writing style I haven't ever used before, I've only seen others use it, and the intention is to give the reader a deep sense of unease. I hope it comes across as disorienting and disturbing, and not as silly or juvenile.
> 
> Updates might be multi-chapter, and it's to help break up things and make them more disjointed, or to help assist you with understanding the flow of things. If you don't like to keep clicking Next Chapter, just click the Entire Work option at the top, where you'd change chapters. There may be parts where the orientation changes. (Any of you ever read House of Leaves? Yeah.) Hopefully they'll convert properly from Google Docs to AO3.
> 
> There will be things I'm intentionally leaving unexplained. This is either to further the disorientation, or because I'll explain it when I feel it comes seamlessly with the plot. Some things may never be described in detail that's satisfying to you- this is intentional. Feel free to ask questions, though, because I might've overlooked things. Critique- negative and positive- is always welcome.

It was supposed to be an adventure.

 

Not this kind of adventure.

 

 

 

 

Jack was so excited for LA. He'd been saying he would go to LA for ages, and finally, finally! -he was doing it. California!

 

He used the brute force of enthusiasm to get through jet lag. He wouldn't miss a minute of anything. Mark had planned on letting him sleep a few hours when he arrived. Instead, Jack hustled him out the door and they went to a hibachi grill. They played frisbee golf with the Game Grumps until it was dark, and stumbled blind and laughing back to their cars. 

 

Mark and Jack played Mario kart late into the night, hollering and throwing popcorn, both of them in their pajamas, until they both decided they should sleep. Jack found himself yawning as he headed for the guest room.

 

The next day was just as fantastic. And the next. They ate great food and spent time with awesome people. Mark took him swimming at the gym he went to, and then they went to the coast and had ice cream. Jack was all but spamming his Instagram, but he didn't care- he just wanted to share how fantastic things were. And Mark seemed determined to share his entire life with Jack in a week.

 

"I feel kinda bad for putting so much stuff on people's Instagram feed," Jack mused, thumbing through the comments as Mark drove them to what he promised was  the best brick oven pizza in the country. "But I can't seem to stop."

 

"People aren't upset, I'm sure. Your community is so kind- and friendly. Like, you're less of a mascot and more like... Glue. They love hearing from you, you're like that friend who introduced the squad to each other and then kept them together."

 

Jack grinned bashfully. "Thanks, man. I'm really- I love my community. They're not fans, they're friends. Honestly, it's incredible, a lot of them don't go like, Jack ohmygoodness I'm your biggest fan! They're more like, hey bro, sup?"

 

Mark turned a wide smile at him. "You've earned it, man. You're the perfect guy for the job, you deserve it all, all the good things that are happening are-"


	2. Chapter 2

Jack only saw it for an instant. It was less sight and more perception- that spatial sense that allows a person to perceive the shape of the area around them.

 

Jack felt the space collapse. His senses told him something fast was coming, and he had only just started to flinch when the impact arrived.

 

Noise. Spinning. Motion in every direction. Heat. Light.

 

Dark.


	3. Chapter 3

Mark got up first, stumbling and heaving his way upright. His breath sounded panicked. Jack just lay there, sucking in air, cheek pressed into the ground. Standing seemed a long ways away.

 

“What the hell was that?” Mark croaked, voice tight and hoarse with fear and confusion. Jack mostly felt confusion, but the fear was slowly working its way through him.

 

Jack tried to speak, and just mumble-groaned. He pushed himself to sit up, and tried again. “Fuck. Dunno.” His mouth dropped open. “The fuck are we?”

 

“I don’t know,” Mark whispered.

 

“We were- did we get hit? I think we got in an accident. I saw- something hit us. From your side.” Jack whispered back. He turned, taking in the area. “Did- did we get thrown from your car?”

 

“This doesn’t look like California.”

 

It didn’t look like anywhere Jack had ever been. They were on the side of a steep hill, in old woods. The trees were tall, and the foliage on them was high up and thick, blocking most of the light. Everything looked dim and dusty.

 

Jack got up and mindlessly brushed the dirt off his pants and shirt.

 

“I don’t understand,” Jack muttered.

 

He and Mark just stared around, completely at a loss.

 

“Why are we whispering?” Mark suddenly asked.

 

“I dunno. It feels like we should.”

 

“We shouldn’t be here,” Mark said, urgency in his tone. They still spoke quietly, unable to disturb the thick silence.

 

Jack could feel it too- they  shouldn’t  be there. There was a sense of wrongness, of fear, of impending disaster. His hands shook with it and he could feel the pressure of his heart against the inside of his chest. This was a wrong place. A bad place. He wanted to go home, or go anywhere else, with a need so strong it made a lump in his throat.

 

He patted his pockets, and then jammed his hands in them, and looked all over the ground. No use. His phone was gone.

 

“Your phone?” he asked Mark. His companion repeated the motions he’d just done, and came up empty handed. No phones. Had they both been thrown from their pockets in the crash? The crash that didn’t seem to have happened, in a place that seemed very far from the area they were in.

 

"This can’t be real,” he forced out.

 

“Maybe I’m in a coma, and I’m dreaming,” Mark reasoned. He was looking around like he expected something to happen. Jack couldn’t stop scanning the area either- he had a sense of  hunted run run run that he had only experienced during willing suspension of disbelief in well-immersive horror games.

 

“Excuse you, I’m not a figment of your dream, I’m really here. Maybe  I’m the one in a coma.”

 

“Except I’m really here too.”

 

They fell into silence again. Jack felt like he didn’t dare move, but at the same time, like he needed to  run run get out run jesus christ run .

 

“Are we… are we dead?” Jack asked. It came out almost like a whimper.

 

“I don’t know. Maybe.”

 

“Then what is this? Hell?”

 

“I… I don’t think so.” Hell didn’t sound right, but it was all Jack could think of. It certainly wasn’t heaven.


	4. Chapter 4

“Then what is this? Hell?”

“I… I don’t think so.” Hell didn’t sound right, but it was all Jack could think of. It certainly wasn’t heaven.

“Why don’t we head uphill and see if we can find a clearing or something? Maybe we can see a landmark somewhere,” Jack suggested. Mark nodded, and they began moving carefully uphill- carefully because any sound they made seemed to echo, and both of them flinched at every snapped branch and crackling leaf.

 As they walked, Jack leaned down and picked up a large branch. Mark cast him a questioning look.

 “It’s a comfort thing. I don’t want to meet someth- I want to be armed.”

 “With a stick?”

 “It’s a big stick,” Jack huffed. Mark rolled his eyes, but it made Jack feel more comfortable to have something to defend himself with. ( _What are you defending yourself from?_ , he silently wondered.) ( _Here there be monsters_.)

 The slope seemed never ending. It wasn’t too steep of a grade, and Jack knew he hadn’t exactly been keeping up with his cardio, but it felt like they’d been walking for hours. Maybe they _had_ been walking for hours.

 Jack glanced at his wrist, but his watch was gone. He could understand his phone falling out of his pocket. He couldn’t, however, accept that his watch somehow came unbuckled and disappeared in the crash as well. An idea hit him.

 “Jesuschrist,” he hissed. “Mark! We’ve been fucking kidnapped!”

 Mark stopped walking and turned- he’d been a few steps ahead of Jack. “What?”

 “We’ve been- someone must’ve kidnapped us! We got in an accident and- and… it wasn’t an accident, it was a fucking _hit and run_ , except they nabbed us in the run! And put us here- wherever here is!”

 Mark gave him a flat stare. “That doesn’t make any sense.”

 “No, but it does! Whoever hit our car, it was planned, they wrecked our car and we got knocked out, and they took us from the wreck and drove us to this place, and dumped us in the woods, took our phones and watches, and left.”

 “You know, when people get knocked out, they’re only usually out for, like, a minute,” Mark pointed out.

 “Then they chloroform’d us, I don’t know,” Jack snorted.

 “Okay… but why would they dump us in the woods?”

 “Could be some sort of Saw thing, you know? Like, they’re watching with a bunch of game cameras up in the trees, and in a minute they’re gonna let loose a bunch of bloodthirsty hounds on us,” Jack mused.

 “That sounds awful. Maybe they were thieves, but not murderers- they wanted our stuff and they wanted us gone, but didn’t actually want to take a life, right? So they just dumped us out here,” Mark said, warming up to the idea.

 “Or maybe it’s some sadistic super fans who want to chuck us in a horrible place and watch us use our ‘horror game’ skills to fight our way out,” Jack suggested, and they both laughed.

 “Yeah, my ‘horror game’ skills. Repeating the game until I could do it with my eyes closed and clicking really fast,” Mark snickered.

 “Quick-time event skills. Totally means I’d be good at a real-life event,” Jack added. They chuckled.

 

And then the silence came back.

 

And then the fear came back.

 

 


	5. Chapter 5

“Seriously, what the fuck is this?” Mark asked, back to whispering. “I don’t think anyone kidnapped us and put us here.”

“No, you’re right. This is way worse than that. It’s like… it’s such a feeling. This place is like something I’ve never felt before. There’s nothing for the eyes to see… but there’s this sense. Like, there’s that phrase, when you feel like a sword is hanging over your head, or something like that? You can feel the danger, feel it in your neck and ears and spine, but you can’t see it. I literally feel like that.”

“Likewise. Did we get drugged? Is this a bad trip?”

“I don’t know, I’ve never done drugs. Is this what a bad trip feels like?”

“I don’t know, I haven’t done drugs either.”

They were quiet for another moment.

“We’ve been walking a long time,” Mark pointed out. “Normal walking pace is, what, 16 or 17 minutes per mile? Let’s go with 20, since we’ve been going a little slow. I feel like we’ve been walking for more than an hour. We could’ve covered four miles by now. Four miles going up.”

“That’s a lot, isn’t it?” Jack asked. He didn’t pay much attention to things like that- he wasn’t the type to go hiking and measure how far he’d hikes, or elevation, or anything like that.

“Kind of, yeah.”

Something obvious occurred to Jack. “I’m not thirsty.”

Mark stopped as the implication of that hit them both. They’d been walking in this dusty, gray, dim forest for over an hour, and neither of them wanted a drink. Jack noticed he wasn’t hungry either, which was really weird- they’d been on their way to lunch. He’d been ravenous. And now he wasn’t.

“This is wrong, this is so _wrong_ ,” Mark hissed. “I feel like I’m in a nightmare. I feel like I’m on the edge of realizing that this isn’t real. Like when you’re still deep in the dream, but everything is so messed up and different from reality that you’re just seconds away from waking up and realizing it wasn’t reality at all.”

Jack shivered- Mark had summed it up pretty well. And he still felt that- that something, the creep and cringe of impending doom.

“Maybe we should head back to where we woke up,” Jack suggested. “Maybe someone will come for us.”

 

“We could be close to the top,” Mark protested.

 

“Look,” Jack said, gesturing up the hill. It hadn’t gotten any steeper, but it hadn’t leveled out at all either, and as far as he could see through the dim trees, it didn’t seem to end. “I don’t see a clearing or anything. Maybe we’ve gotten turned around. Let’s go back.”

Mark shrugged, but turned with him, and they started-

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ~~orientation change~~
> 
> /\   
>  |  
>  |
> 
>  
> 
> read up.  
> at the bottom  
> Start

they came.

toward where

back uphill

To walk

  
  


\-------------

  
  


no motion of tilting.

tilted, but there was

It was as if the ground had

 

movement beneath his feet.

without the sensation of

but down had somehow become up,

and he turned to walk down,

He had been walking uphill,

 

he realized his orientation had changed.

Jack felt a half a second of dizziness as

  
  
  
\-----------------------------------------


	7. Chapter 7

He felt scared and confused and overwhelmed because this was not how the world worked this was not how reality worked this was not reality this was not reality this wasn’t real this couldn’t be real this was not this wasn’t it was not not not not no

no

Mark had sat down heavily.

“Oh my god. This isn’t real,” Jack whispered.

Mark seemed to be pressing both hands over his mouth and shaking his head slowly. His eyes were squeezed tightly closed, as if to keep out what had just occurred.

This wasn’t-

Jack shook his shoulder. “You have to get up. We’ve got to keep moving.” He was whispering again, but the feeling of  _something bad is going to happen you have to get out of here_  was reaching a crescendo. He shifted his grip on the branch, holding it more firmly. “We’ve got to keep going.”

Mark just shook his head and made a muffled sound.

“Mark! Jesus christ, _get up_!” Jack shouted, unable to contain it, tugging on Mark’s arm. He whipped around, checking behind him. He wanted to be running, or to have his back to something, he felt exposed and afraid.

Mark dropped his hands from his face with a choked noise and got to his feet, Jack pulling on him the whole time. Jack pulled him into a fast lumber, and then Jack let go of him to jog, and then run, and then they were sprinting across the ground, still going uphill. His lungs and legs burned, but he couldn’t slow down.

He couldn’t not check.

He turned his head and cried out, forcing himself to try and move faster, Mark right at his side. His outburst caused Mark to glance backwards too, and in the moment he took his eyes off where he was running-

 

  -he tripped-

 

         and          went

                            somersaulting

                                                onto

                                                          the ground                  crashing

 

                                                                                                                 falling

                                         s k i    d     d       i      n       g

 

r

 o

   l

    l

      i

        n

           g

  
  


Jack nearly ran past him. It took all his will to overcome his lizard brain instinct to save himself, and forced himself to slow and stop and look back.

It was on him, and they were thrashing over the ground in a sloppy tussle. Life was sloppy- they were fighting for life. There was no art to it, just flailing and screaming and- and another sound, Jack knew it was making that sound- struggling. To live.

Jack charged back at them and threw himself onto the pile of striking and clawing, tearing it off Mark. A talon dug into his side, securing in the fight, and his mouth was full of feathers and the smell of rot, sweet and salty and making him gag, even as his own blunt nails skidded across dry, papery scales and leathery flesh. He was striking out blindly with his wrists and knees, trying to lean his head back to get away from it. He realized he was shouting in one of it’s mouths just as it choked and yipped into his.

There was a soft thump, and it made more noise and fell back from him. He pushed it away and scrambled backwards, trying to get away and get to his feet all at once.

Mark hit it again with the branch, and again. There was no discernable weak spot- no apparent face, no soft eyes to dig into, no familiar anatomy to target- so he was just swinging at it, teeth bared and lips pulled back in a seemingly unconscious expression of ferocity and effort.

He hit it again and there was an audible tear, and it’s motion slowed noticeably, and it’s sounds ceased. Mark dropped the stick and turned, running into the woods, Jack following closely.

_Getawayget  away      get                 away                   run_

 


	8. Chapter 8

Jack still didn’t feel like they’d put enough distance between them and it when they stopped, but his legs had given out and Mark had a worrying hitch-and-whistle in his breath. Jack lay on his side, sucking air. He wanted to cry.

“Holy shit. Holy shit. Holy shit,” Mark was huffing, over and over again. Jack rolled onto his back and stared up at the undersides of the trees.

He realized that they had ran uphill again. Every direction was up.

“What- the fuck- was that?” Mark panted, knitting his fingers together and putting them over his head.

Jack just shook his head.

“I think we’re in hell. We’re dead. We died in that accident. And now we’re in hell. Jesus christ. We’re in hell,” Mark moaned.

Jack wouldn’t believe it. For several reasons. Firstly, he thought you had to be a christian to believe in Hell and such, and he wasn’t sure that he was a christian. It had never been something he felt he needed to decide yet. He had gone to church some, stereotypical irish catholic services, but whether he believed or didn’t was still up in the air. He didn’t disbelieve it, but he wasn’t faithful either.

Second- supposing the christian folks were right and there were a Heaven and Hell- what had he done to deserve hell? He knew he wasn’t perfect. He made mistakes, plenty of them. He had his fair share of sins. But as sins went, his didn’t seem like things that would condemn his afterlife to an eternity of torture. And he’d done good things, or so he’d thought- his community was the best thing he’d ever accomplished, bringing millions of people together in laughter and friendship. Money and fame be damned, he was proud of his channel for what it accomplished in others, not what came out of it for him. He thought- well, maybe he didn’t quite earn Heaven, but Hell? No.

And there was no way Mark would end up in Hell too. If Jack was only a little bit of a sinner, than Mark was a saint- he’d done much bigger and better things with his channel. Charity livestreams several times a year, pulling friends and peers along with him, shining the spotlight on everyone around him, literally saving lives. Jack heard a lot of people who had been changed for the better after beginning to watch his videos, becoming a happier person, making it through hard times. But Mark was the true hero, the one who looked right in that lens and told people they were stronger and better and he believed in them, and millions of people saw it. Jack heard some good had come from himself, but he never stopped hearing about all the good that had come from Mark.

He might be able to believe he’d landed in hell, but he wouldn’t- couldn’t accept that Mark was on the bad kid list.

“I don’t know where we are, but it’s not Hell,” Jack said with confidence, sitting up, and Mark nodded mechanically.

“But it’s got to be some afterlife thing. We- this isn’t the living earth we know,” he reasoned.

“I don’t know that we’re actually dead, though. That seems like a bad thing to assume,” Jack pointed out. “But I’m not sure we’re all that alive. I feel kind of- like we fell down in the crack between life and death.”

“A middle point. Like life is one place and death is the other and we didn’t quite make the jump,” Mark said, nodding again. “You’re right, we can’t be dead- we’ve still got our survival instinct. That- that thing- when it jumped us, we didn’t just let it get us, we fought. We don’t want to die, so we can’t be dead.”

“What happens if we die? If it gets us bad next time?” Jack asked.

Mark looked at him, and Jack felt a stab of pain at the expression in his eyes. The fear was gone… but so was everything else. He looked like a man at the end of his rope. Dejected and this close to giving up. Exhausted and confused and resigned.

Jack didn’t let him give up.

 

He got to his feet.

 

 


End file.
